speaking of My 3 things everyone should know to prevent bird flu
The Section of Epidemiology Bulletin, State of Alaska released today announces the good news that the vaccine against the virus causing some cancers, disfigurement, and childlessness will be available from the Vaccines for Children Program.
VFC Eligibility Criteria
Vaccines for Children (VFC) is a federal entitlement program that pays for vaccines for children aged 18 years or younger who meet at least one of the following eligibility criteria:
• Medicaid eligible;
• Alaska Native or American Indian;
• Uninsured;
• Underinsured, i.e., has insurance but it does not cover the cost of vaccines, and receiving services at a Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC).
The bad news is that only girls are mentioned as recipients even though boys are also eligible for the vaccine program.
It is very important that boys and girls both get the vaccine. Men and boys do suffer maiming and illness from this virus. Aren’t they also worthy of protection?
As the NHS Blog Doctor
points out, “… if you want to protect your teenage daughters against this, or this and your teenage sons against this, I would get them the immunisation as soon as it becomes available.” [The links are to medical teaching sites and pathology images.]
The vaccine is to protect all children, not just some. Contact your legislators or E-mail the Governor to be sure your grandsons and sons are also protected, starting June 2007.
2007-04-10 The manager of the Alaska Immunization Program, Laurel Wood, has kindly informed me that boys cannot be included for vaccination because the US Federal Drug Administration has not licensed it for boys and young men in the United States.
Currently the FDA has approved Gardasil for use only in females. (See question #11 at the FDA website: http://www.fda.gov/cber/products/hpvmer060806qa.htm)
This is based on the data currently available to support the safety and efficacy of the vaccine. Additional testing is being conducted to establish this information for males. If this vaccine receives FDA licensure for use in boys, we will begin to provide it through the same Vaccines for Children Program discussed in the Epidemiology Bulletin.
However, in 2006, the 25 countries of the European Union, including the five largest which are France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom, have approved the vaccine as safe and effective for boys, as well.
In New Zealand, http://www.moh.govt.nz/moh.nsf/pagesmh/4993?Open
# Gardasil is indicated in females aged 9 to 26 years for the prevention of cervical, vulva and vaginal cancer, precancerous or dysplastic lesions, genital warts and infection caused by Human Papillomavirus (HPV) types 6, 11, 16 and 18 (which are included in the vaccine.)
# Gardasil is indicated in males 9 to 15 years for the prevention of infection caused by Human Papillomavirus (HPV) types 6, 11, 16 and 18.
Maybe Sen. Murkowski and Sen. Stevens should be contacted.
Site Search Tags: HPV, STDs, vaccine, safe+sex, children, NHSBlogDoc, cancer, Lisa+Murkowski, Ted+Stevens
click logo for Grassroots Science projects. Join us
Recently there has been news of a study in the New England Journal of Medicine. The headlines are misleading but the actual story seems to be that the vaccine doesn’t prevent all cancers.
Part of the reason was that many of the teenage girls and young women in the three-year study had already been exposed to the virus, according to the report in the New England Journal of Medicine.
But the data also hinted that blocking the targeted strains might have opened an ecological niche that allowed the flourishing of HPV strains previously considered to be minor players, partially offsetting the vaccine’s protection….
The maker of the vaccine, Merck & Co., said the studies clearly showed that the vaccine prevented infections from the two HPV strains and reduced the number of precancerous lesions caused by the them….
The cancer is caused primarily by the human papilloma virus. About 20 strains of the virus are known.
Gardasil targets two of them — HPV-16 and HPV-18 — that normally produce about 70% of the cancers. It also prevents infections from two other strains of the virus that produce about 90% of all genital warts.
http://www.latimes.com/news/science/la-sci-hpv10may10,0,5061364,full.story?coll=la-home-center
It seems fairly obvious to me that vaccines are not all that useful after one has already been infected. However, there have been some vaccines (against other infections) which provide some cross-immunization. That is, the antibody or immune response to specific antigens may prepare the immune system to ward off other infections.
At the least, if one is immune to one infection but then challenged by another infection, there is only the one infection to fight instead of several at once. This is some of the reasoning behind the idea of getting the seasonal flu shot. But, getting this season’s flu mix vaccine does not then guarantee you won’t get sick if exposed to another type of flu virus.
Another reminder why boys need the vaccine, too.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2004159764_oral02.html
related posts here–
http://ykalaska.wordpress.com/2007/06/04/cancer-vaccine-update/